


Waiting For the Stars To Fall

by lost_spook



Category: Forsyte Saga - All Media Types
Genre: 1920s, Community: hc_bingo, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Post-Series, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 13:06:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5291966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael reflects on what he wants from Fleur.  It's a dangerous question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting For the Stars To Fall

**Author's Note:**

> For the hc_bingo square "unrequited pining". Written via watching the BBC (1967) _Forsyte Saga_. (I'd imagine it's also fairly consistent with the books, but I read them far too long ago now to be sure.)

He says, when it finally seems prudent to do so, and only just makes it a question, that perhaps she doesn’t want to finish sitting for that portrait now.

Fleur thinks for a while before replying; one never knows at times like these what might be passing through her mind. Then she puts her hand over his and gives a quick shake of her head. “No. I can’t. I simply can’t. Is that too awful of me?”

Michael smiles. “Not at all. Entirely understandable.”

“I do think,” she adds, in what sounds like a non-sequiteur and he is sure can’t be, “that painters are such horrid people.”

Michael leans back in the chair and laughs. “What, all of them? Not one decent chap among them? Surely not.”

“One, perhaps,” says Fleur, a brief flicker of amusement in her face, before her expressions darkens. “But probably just the one.”

“Goodness.” Michael doesn’t ask for an explanation. He’s pretty sure that at bottom, it’s not to do with painters or even her father’s death; it’s connected to Jon. He’s got a sixth sense for when that’s the case, or maybe it’s only too much time spent working out the mysteries of Fleur, but whatever it is, he’d rather he hadn’t sometimes; it’s damned uncomfortable.

“He _is_ horrid, though,” Fleur continues, almost breathless, as if it matters to her in some way she’s not explaining. “Or too _seeing_ maybe.” She plays with Michael’s hair lightly as he sits next to her, leaning in against her and, quite stupidly, such things still make his heart beat with sudden irregularity. A bird of hope made her nest inside him several ages ago and she flutters her wings alarmingly at times like these, but Michael’s grown used to it.

Fleur pauses then, and pulls back. “He said men are happy with only the body, but women always have to go after the soul of a person. Do you think that’s true?”

If it’s true, thinks Michael, then he ought to be perfectly content already and have no aching inside for something more from Fleur. He feels it’s a bit of an all or nothing sort of statement, too grandiose for him. Like most things, there’s probably some truth in it, but what use is a body without whatever it is that animates it from within? Call it heart or soul or life essence or anything you like, but nothing’s any good without it. He doesn’t want someone who isn’t Fleur, and wouldn’t want her silent, unresponsive or in any way not Fleur. Perhaps the man only meant that it’s best to accept what you can have and not keep asking for more until you get something you don’t, but Michael’s not sure that’s entirely fair either, not put like that.

“Well, Michael?” she says, sounding bemused by his moment of introspection. 

He only grins at her. It’s probably not a safe question to answer, not if she’s taking it seriously. “You should ask Uncle Hilary. He’s the one who’s supposed to be chasing people’s souls, after all.”

“Is he?” Fleur gives a small laugh. “I thought he was merely after our purses so he could buy up slum streets to his heart’s content.”

Michael shrugs, and then looks up at her. “Still, the chap’s not taken the clergy into account, has he? Probably overlooked a dozen other things, too, ducky. It’s not worth worrying over.”

“Yes, what does he know?” says Fleur, and Michael knows one can’t fix things so easily, but she sounds more like herself and that’s something. “Oh, Michael! Talking of slums, you’ll never guess who wrote me a letter. It arrived today.”

“Oh?”

“One of my girls, from the rest house. All painstakingly written out in pencil. Thanking me for arranging the lovely holiday and telling me I really ought to be a Minister’s Angle. Do you think she meant a ministering angel?”

“I hope so,” Michael says. “Although I suppose her English teacher might not. Still, bully for her! See, Fleur?”

Fleur stubs out her cigarette on the ash tray beside her, and gives a rueful smile. “You mean one of them doesn’t hate me?”

“No, darling,” says Michael. “No.”

She sighs then and looks at him. “Michael, I _do_ care, you know. Quite dreadfully sometimes, in my own way.” She runs her fingers through his hair again and kisses his forehead. “I’ve told you – I’m a Forsyte. I know the value of things.” Then she smiles more fully – always a little dazzling still – and kisses him again, at which point he casts all painters’ half-baked philosophies and thoughts of slum clearance schemes to the wind. 

It comes back to him, though, in the middle of the night, when he can’t help going over her words in his head, the way they lift him and hurt him; the pain and the pleasure inextricably intertwined. He decides before going to sleep that, when it comes down to it, what he wants is Fleur, and any part of her that she feels she can give him – so long as it comes unasked for and freely. The rest doesn’t matter.


End file.
